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Looking Forward

October 7, 2009 in Blogs, From the Road, Student Life 2

Sorry my blogging has sucked royally as of late.

Sincerely.

It’s not that I haven’t had things to write about. Quite the contrary, actually.  It’s just that I’ve had a couple of crazy weeks where various different things have consumed my thoughts not only during the day but also at night.  Those “things” consist of things like:

  1. Student Life Theme
  2. Summer event Bible study for summer 2010
  3. Halloween costumes
  4. A blog “initiative” for SL
  5. Messaging for SL
  6. What’s next
  7. Zombies

I didn’t say they were all serious or anything.

Anyway, today I traveled with some co-workers to Atlanta for the Catalyst Conference.  I first came to Catalyst a few years ago.  Student Life had a booth, and I came to stand in the booth and talk about Student Life.  I would go into the sessions, though, and was blown away.  I was challenged from a production standpoint, spiritual standpoint, and business standpoint.  For the past three or four years I’ve been coming just as an attendee and bringing more people with me each year.  This year, though, I’m back to work the SL booth.  But it’s cool.  I’ll still be attending as much as possible.

And, lucky you, I’ll be blogging and twittering all about it.  Plus, if you’re interested, you can keep up with all that’s happening at Catalyst Backstage.  There Anne Jackson and Carlos Whitaker will be bringing you all the backstage action as well as what’s happening in the room.  Check it out, if at all possible.

So, until sometime tomorrow, thanks for sticking with me… all five of you.

Content Creation 103

September 10, 2009 in Ministry, Student Life 0

This is a continuation post on the content creation process we at Student Life go through with regards to thematic development (with special attention to how we arrived at the theme for Summer 2010, which is Re).  If you missed the first two posts, you can scroll down a little bit or find them here and here.

Now, it’s important to not do these kind of things in a vacuum.  When you do, it’s very easy to get consumed with either what you’re an “expert” at (i.e. what you know the best) or the thing God is currently teaching you.  That’s not necessarily bad so long as what you’re an expert in or what God is currently teaching you is also what He has in mind for thousands of teenagers to spend a week of their life wrestling with.  That’s just one of the reasons for the pitch meeting in our process.

Here’s who’s officially involved (because many other people are giving valuable feedback just because I ask them): Randy Hall, Founder and CEO; Earl Roberson, COO and acting Marketing Director; Rick Murray, CFO and Director of Resources; Roger Davis, Senior V.P. and Director of Ministry Events; Andy Blanks, Director of Resource Development; Drew Francis, Creative Director; and myself.  Don’t all those titles sound super-fancy?  You may notice a lack of women on that list.  Let me assure you that I’m sensitive to there being the potential for a lack of female input and influence in the upper echelons of the more “conservative” branches of our Faith.  Remember those other people I mentioned that give “unofficial” feedback because I ask for it and because it’s important?  Yeah.  A number of them are female.

What happens in the pitch meeting is I typically pass around some handouts that briefly outline each theme.  I talk through each one and then we discuss them.  We say what we like, what we don’t like.  Opinions are offered on how something might work (or not work) or how a phrase sounds or could be communicated well.  These meetings can last awhile (and should).

As a creative, it’s natural for me to get real attached to my work.  Since that’s the case, it can sometimes be rather difficult to listen to critique objectively.  However, it’s vitally important to do so.  As Content Creator, part of my job is to develop the best theme possible.  In order to do that I can’t just rely on myself.  I’ve got to be open to feedback, completely open.  Sure, I should push for what I think is best, but I also need to recognize that I could be wrong (and I am… every now and then… not often, though).

So, here’s the feedback in a nutshell:

1. ¡UNITE! – This received more positive feedback than it has when I’ve pitched it in the past.  We liked the idea of helping students catch a vision for corporate faith and saw what a difference it could make in youth groups and, then, hopefully, in each of their home churches.  We also liked “¡UNITE!” much more than “Synergy” or “We the People.”  However, the conversation quickly moved on from this idea to the other two.  Well… there’s always next year.

2.  Light the Darkness – As I’ve said before, prior to the initial pitch meeting this was the early front-runner.  Once we got going, there was a lot of discussion about how it could play out.  Everyone immediately caught a vision for it.  We were spouting off examples of all the various examples in Scripture where light and darkness are contrasted and how it relates to our position in the world as God’s people and ambassadors.  However, there was some concern over the phrase, itself.  We wondered if it was, maybe, too obvious. It kinda had this feel that it had been done before.  So, we loved the content… not the phrase.  If you’re going to have a problem, that’s the problem to have.

3. The Good Life – Once we recognized some issues with “Light the Darkness,” “The Good Life” quickly rose to the top.  It was easy to see how it would work at camp and the idea of spending a week with students teaching and discussing justice, merciful love and humility not only sounded worthwhile, but we also felt like we might be missing a real opportunity if we didn’t do it.  We were all really loving it until we hit a speed bump… the phrase.  We felt like it was too similar to “Life is Good,” a decently popular brand out there and then there was concern that the word “good” sounded a little… I don’t know… average, I guess.  You know, like it wasn’t “The Great Life.”  It was just “The Good Life.”

So, where did that leave us.  Well, “¡UNITE!” was off the table, for this year at least.  That left the ideas of light and Micah 6:8.  I was sent back to the drawing board to work with whoever else to try to see what other word or phrases we could come up with that could “go on the t-shirt.”

Trying to “title” things proves to be one of the most fun, challenging and absolutely infuriating aspects of anything I try to do.  So… I at least knew my next week or two were going to be exciting if nothing else.

Re Theme Video

September 9, 2009 in Student Life 2

We’ll pick up with Content Creation 103 tomorrow.

For today, check out the video we made to begin communicating just what Re (Student Life’s 2010 summer event theme) is all about.

Content Creation 102

September 8, 2009 in Ministry, Student Life 3

This is an overdue continuation post on the content creation process we at Student Life go through with regards to thematic development (with special attention to how we arrived at the theme for Summer 2010, which is Re).  If you missed the first post, you can scroll down a little bit or just click here.

After we went through the process of initially brainstorming theme ideas and then narrowing them down based on the criteria I mentioned, we were left with three theme ideas.  “¡UNITE!,” “Light the Darkness,” and “The Good Life.”

“¡UNITE!” is a theme I’ve been kicking around for a few years.  I keep making it a part of my proposals, yet we never end up doing it, which is okay.  That’s part of the process.  The general idea behind it is that so much of our focus in youth ministry is on a teenager’s “personal relationship with Christ,” and that’s all fine and good and everything.  However, there’s this other huge aspect of Christianity that’s corporate or communal.  So, that’s what this theme would talk about, the people of God, the (big “C”) Church.  In previous iterations this theme as also been called “Synergy” and “We the People.”  The theme verse I had selected for it this time was actually a passage of Scripture, Ephesians 4:3-6.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

“Light the Darkness” is an idea Roger (one of our V.P.’s and Director of Events) brought to the table.  It initially occurred to him at the end of the film I Am Legend, which he was watching on a plane ride back from a trip to Haiti with Compassion, if I remember correctly.  Towards the end of the film Will Smith’s character is talking to a woman about why he has hope and Bob Marley.  This is what he says:

He [Marley] had this idea. It was kind of a virologist idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate… literally cure it, by injecting music and love into people’s lives. When he was scheduled to perform at a peace rally, a gunman came to his house and shot him down. Two days later he walked out on that stage and sang. When they asked him why – He said, “The people, who were trying to make this world worse… are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.”

So, we dropped the “up” and were left with “Light the Darkness.”  Some might be surprised that we were considering a theme that came directly from a zombie/vampire film like I Am Legend and indirectly came from Bob Marley.  But ideas come from all sorts of places, and the metaphor of light driving out the darkness is about as Christian and Biblical as you can get.  For a theme verse, we had all kinds of options, including Matthew 5:16, Ephesians 5:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:5 and John 8:12.  Out of all the options my early favorite was the one from Ephesians.

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.

“The Good Life” was a last minute addition to the process.  In fact, it hadn’t come from any kind of meeting, email or conversation.  I was just working through a number of different projects at the time and was reading in the book of Micah.  When I read chapter six again and came to verse eight, I just though, “this would make a great summer event theme.”  So, I had Micah 6:8 as a theme verse…

He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

… but I had no theme, you know, the word or phrase that goes on the t-shirt.  I spent just a day or two trying to come up with something and landed on “The Good Life” just for the sake of having something.  Micah 6:8 had to do with righteous living and it was called “good.”  So, “The Good Life” seemed appropriate.

Honestly, I didn’t think much thought would be given to it.  You see, once we have some ideas, I generally write them up in some kind of proposal that seeks to cast some vision for how the theme would work at an event and what the overall message would be.  Sometimes that’s in outline form.  Sometimes it’s just bullet-pointed ideas.  This year, it was basically theme ideas with theme verses, some tentative marketing copy, and then a paragraph or two explaining the general gist of the idea. Here’s an example for “Light the Darkness.”

Theme: LIGHT THE DARKNESS

Verse: “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” – Matthew 5:16

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” – Ephesians 5:8

“You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.” – 1Thessalonians 5:5

“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” – John 8:12

Copy: The World can be a very dark place.  In the midst of this shadowland, we as Christ-followers are called to live as light, as beacons of hope and love.  We’re to live lives that confront the problems of evil in our world and that serve as guideposts pointing everyone around us to God.  When truly living as we were intended we cannot hide the illumination within us but must shine for all to see.  We can and we will LIGHT THE DARKNESS.

The Gist: This theme is very missional in nature, perhaps in its purest sense.  It’s not cause-driven nor is it chiefly concerned with evangelism, or social justice or correct behavior.  This speaks directly to the purpose of our lives and existence and the difference that we truly can make and should make in the World.  It fits very naturally with who we are as an organization and what we’ve been saying.  We’ll have to walk a fine line to not making it about our individual or particular causes, but step back and cast for students the bigger vision of God’s work in the world and how he calls us to be an essential part of it.

Once I’ve got all that, I pitch it to a group of various people that lead the events.  Well, going into it, there had been a lot of conversations already, and most had centered around “Light the Darkness,” so much so that I pretty much figured the pitch meeting this year was just a formality and that our theme was already pretty much decided.  We were on a tight time-line, and making the theme decision quickly would have been great, and so many people seemed to really like the idea.  So, I figured I’d throw out “¡UNITE!” and “The Good Life” to show I was doing my job, but that we’d walk out of the meeting pretty quickly with us all rallied around “Light the Darkness.”

However, this was not to be the case.


Content Creation 101

August 31, 2009 in Ministry, Student Life 3

I work at Student Life.  We’re a para-church youth ministry organization that primarily focuses on summer events and Bible study resources.  My job title at Student Life is Content Creator.

When it comes to my job I’m often asked (even by people I work with on a daily basis) what exactly that means.  I’ve decided to take a few posts and try to explain.

Let me inform you right off the bat that there are a lot of things I do around here.  In fact, there’s a new project we’re working on that I’m getting to kinda lead (at least for right now), and it’s pretty big.  But the main responsibility of my job is thematic development.

So, what is “thematic development.”  Well, it’s basically developing the general message that whatever we’re doing is going to present to its audience.  So, whether we’re doing a book, a Bible study, an event, a video, whatever, for the most part, they’re going to hopefully “say” something.  I’m responsible for giving the direction for what they’re going to say.  Thankfully I don’t have to do this all by myself, but I’ve got to at least drive that particular bus.

So, let’s take a for instance… our summer events.  Generally, all of our summer events carry the same message.  Now it will be presented in all kinds of different ways, video, stage, design, Bible study, magazine, etc, and each of these different mediums might not all present the whole of the message, but they will at least focus on a part.  There are other people in charge of each of these specific areas.  What I provide them is the overall content for the overall message.  That’s what I create, hence me being a “Content Creator.”

So, for next summer our theme is “Re,” and it’s all built around the verse Micah 6:8.  So, how did we get here?  Well, in order to answer that, let’s go back to the beginning of the process.

The first event that is focused around the message of “Re” won’t begin until May 29, 2010.  However, we traditionally release our dates for the next year on May 1 of the previous year.  That means we released information about 2010 summer events on May 1, 2009.  We always try to have the theme solidified by then.  What we mean is that on May 1 we try to have the word or phrase that’s “going to appear on the t-shirt” and at least the verse or passage of Scripture that is providing the focus for that word or phrase.

In order to have that content for May 1, the process usually begins no later than around March 1.  The beginnings of the process often involves me doing one of two things, and possibly both.  Those are a) having a meeting with a big group of people to brainstorm ideas and/or b) emailing a big group of people to ask for those ideas.  Remarkably, few people actually offer many ideas.  We sometimes have a culture around here that is much more prone to react/evaluate/critique than to… well, let’s just leave it at that.

The next thing I do is to begin to trim down those ideas and begin to try to hone in on three or four that I believe would work well for what we’re doing.  Some factors I consider when trying to do so are…

  • What does the Bible say – It’s actually pretty easy to just come up with some “theme” that sounds cool or trendy or relevant or whatever.  But if it’s not first coming out of Scripture and serving to teach Truth and reveal who God is, then it’s really not worth much.
  • What have we said before – We like to be original, at least we try to be.  We don’t really like repeating ourselves too much (we’ve only done so twice, and both instances, I believe, were justified).  So, it’s important to remember what we’ve said in our past, even all the way back to when SL first began.
  • What have we said recently – This is similar to the previous factor, but here’s how it differs.  Often we can get stuck in the realm of one particular message.  Maybe we’re not saying the exact same thing and repeating ourselves, but we’re stuck in orbit around some central idea, expounding on various aspects of it.  Whenever I find that to be the case I have to consider whether a) we’re stuck and need to move on, possibly in a drastically different direction or b) God might have us here for a reason so we can make sure we cover something He’s wanting to say fully.  It’s not always easy to make the call about which is the case.
  • What do teenagers need to hear – While we market our “product” (events and resources) to adults that work with teenagers (youth ministers, youth workers, Bible study teachers, parents, etc.), we create the “product” for teenagers.  There’s a lot we can tell them, but, honestly, they don’t need to hear all of it.  Hopefully they’re going to walk with Christ their entire lives, so they’ve got that long to learn everything they need to know.  We have to answer what we discern they need in the now.  That doesn’t mean that we don’t speak to the past or the future.  Sometimes what they need in the now is to hear about those things as well.
  • What can we say well – We at Student Life have a certain personality and a certain culture.  It’s not always easily definable, but we’ve got to know who we are.  When we do we can more readily understand what we are in a position to say.
  • What are other people saying – We don’t always know this, at least what other people are going to be saying in a year.  But we can look at what others are currently saying or have said recently.  By others, I of course mean our friends and partners in youth ministry who do similar things to what we do.  We consider them less out of competition’s sake and more from trying to avoid repeating their same message or invading their “turf.”  That is, unless we believe they’re getting it wrong and we need to do something in order to rectify that wrong.  This latter case has yet to happen.
  • Where is the Spirit leading – Ultimately this consideration is first and foremost and helps us answer the other factors.  Regardless of how cool it might seem or how great of an idea it might be, if the Spirit’s not in it, we don’t do it.  That’s not always the easiest to discern, but the more we listen, the easier it becomes.

That’s basically how the whole thing begins… Stay tuned to hear (or, rather, read) about what happens next.

B a B

August 25, 2009 in Christianity, Church, Student Life, Videos 0

A few years ago I kinda became obsessed with Barnabas.  You know… the guy in the New Testament (particularly the book of Acts) who’s best known for seemingly tagging along with Paul on his first missionary journey.

The more I looked into just who Barnabas was, the more impressed I was with him.  I mean, his influence had huge, HUGE lasting impact on the Church.

In Reverb (our new study from SLBS), we have a course called “Living Loud” that’s basically a bunch of character studies of people who lived out the mission of God in the World.  We end it with Barnabas.  So I made this simple video to go along with it (give me a break; ok; I’m no animator/graphic designer).

Enjoy.

Be a Barnabas from Chris Kinsley on Vimeo.

2BC Little Rock @ Student Life Camp

July 30, 2009 in Student Life, Videos 0

One of my most favorite things to do each year is wait until late in the summer and then start searching YouTube and Vimeo and the web in general for pics and videos youth ministers and students have made from their weeks at camp.  They’re not always especially awesome, but I love them, seeing the experience they had through their eyes and sharing just a small bit in the memories they took with them.

So, here’s one I stumbles across today from 2BC Little Rock.  Looks like you guys had a blast.  I hope you did.

Student Life Camp 2009 from 2BC Little Rock on Vimeo.

Parachurch Youth Ministry = Baby Products?

July 2, 2009 in Ministry, Student Life 0

One of my most favorite things about Student Life (which I’m sure, for some, would be the most frustrating) is that we never become complacent.  We are always in a state of change, wondering how we can improve or innovate or do something new.  For many of us, we get completely jazzed trying to figure it all out.  At the same time, we can also get really tense, hoping and praying we get things right, that we know what we’re doing, that we’re fighting for the right things and ignoring the rest.  We don’t always get it right.  That’s for sure.  But we try, and we try hard, and we do it all for good, I believe.

At any rate, we’re kinda entering one of those phases right now.  Asking a lot of questions.  Searching for the correct answers.

Inevitably when in one of these seasons we search for some help from “experts” that are out there.  People who have been around in the worlds of ministry and business (since we are both) and know what they’re talking about (we think).  However, one of the things that I find the most troubling in looking to these experts is trying to figure out just how to apply what they have to say to our “industry” (excuse the business terminology, if you will, but a lot of the guys we read are business dudes, so using their lingo just makes things easier).  The reason, I think, it’s difficult to apply their principles is because our industry is really unique (by our “industry” I mean providing resources for youth ministry; I consider events a resource).  So, one of the things I do is try to look outside of our industry to another that I might can compare it to.

Here’s the best I’ve come up with.

We’re kinda like the baby industry.  Since I’ve become a father, I only realize more and more how true this is.  This is what I mean.

When creating products for babies there’s a few different things you have to keep in mind.

1.  The product has to work for the baby.  It’s got to meet some need the baby has.  It has to be appealing to them, entertaining to them.  It’s got to be for them.

2.  The product has to make sense to the parent.  It’s got to be practical, easy to use, affordable.  After all, they’re the one who’s actually going to be doing the purchasing.

Now some products will lean more one way than the other.  For isntance, a toy is going to be much more designed for the baby.  What parent wants some hunk of brightly colored plastic that flashes lights and plays annoying electronic xylophone music over and over?  Most don’t.  Believe me.  But the baby does.  However, when it comes to strollers, what does a baby really care so long as it’s comfortable.  But a parent wants it to be lightweight, sturdy, have plenty of space to carry the rest of the baby’s stuff, have a cupholder for their coffee and look more stylish than all of their other friends’ strollers.

For most baby products, though, they are designed with a near equal consideration for both baby and parent, perhaps only favoring one slightly over the other.

Well, in the world of youth ministry resources, that’s pretty much what we do.  We’ve got to make stuff for teenagers that works for them, appeals to them, meets a need they have, etc.  At the same time it’s got to make sense to the youth minister, be affordable, help them in their ministry, accomplish their goals, etc.

Trust me, it would be much easier to make something for just one type of audience instead of trying to find the balance between two.

But who wants to do it the easy way, anyway?

1 and 1,000,000

June 15, 2009 in Compassion, For Real, God, Ministry, Student Life 1

So any reader of this blog or friend of mine knows that I’m an advocate for Compassion. The company I work for has a partnership with them, but my advocacy goes beyond that. However, most of my talk about Compassion here has centered around my experience with them or those of my close friends and are most often filtered through the lens of our limited perspective since we’re only a small few of those who have the privilege of joining Compassion in the work they’re doing to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

Shaun Groves is  a guy I’ve only met a couple of times, but who is a great voice for millions of children around the world who have none. He’s a musician but also works with the Compassion Bloggers. Last week he had the great opportunity to be up in Colorado Springs at Compassion’s home office to lead worship for their chapel service celebrating the sponsorship of their millionth child. You can read a little bit about it at his shlog. There he has a video they played at that service. I’ve only ever put Compassion videos on here that we had something to do with producing (we being those of us here at Student Life). But this one’s worth it.

Enjoy.

By the way, you, too, can be a part of releasing a child from poverty through sponsorship with Compassion International by clicking here.

Thanks.

Don’t Call It A Comeback

June 10, 2009 in Books, Family, Life, Random, Student Life 2

Enigmatic Meanderings 6/10/09 from Chris Kinsley on Vimeo.

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